Eight years after leaving the country, Lt Cdr Leeham has broken his silence to describe a programme he believes offers a model for securing Pakistan's borders against the militant threat.

While he was at work in the tribal badlands that border Afghanistan, the US State Department programme was a closely guarded secret – even from US and Pakistani officials. Under a one-year contract, Lt Cdr Leedham was granted use of an American fleet of seven helicopters and two fixed-wing planes to conduct anti-terrorist operations in support of local troops from a base in Quetta, capital of the restive province of Baluchistan.

Rules

To do it he had to persuade a Pakistani general to allow him to recruit a handful of local Pathan soldiers. "For a moment in time there was a group of Pathans, there were some Pakistani military officers, there were American mechanics, there was me," he said. "Did we break a few rules on the way? Yes. But if we didn't, the people who would have got the advantage were the bad guys."

Lt Cdr Leedham tells his story in a new book, 'Ask Forgiveness Not Permission'.

He had left the British military – after a career as a helicopter pilot for Royal Marine Commando and "special forces type operations" – and was working with an executive air service in the US when he was approached to take over a failing State Department programme in Pakistan.

Lt Cdr Leedham returned to the US at the end of his one-year contract at the age of 46. Today he lives in London and works in the financial world.